Forum Bydgoskiego Stowarzyszenia Miłośników Zabytków "BUNKIER"

Other restrictions for other Polish towns followed, chiefly caused and called forth by the jealousy of the native merchants. King Sigismund II Augustus issued an edict on the 17th of Sept. 1568, which was to check the influx of Scotsmen into Bromberg. It was chiefly directed against the pedlars or small shopkeepers (‘revenditores’). Merchants, who sell, not by the ell and the pound, but in whole pieces or by stone-weight, are exempt, and special mention is made of four Scottish merchants already members of the guild. It is therefore to be assumed that the Scots tried to evade the restrictions of the law by becoming citizens and members of the merchant fraternity. In 1673 one Gasparus Wolson (Wilson) is the president of the guild; town councillors, aldermen, even burgomasters of Scottish birth or parentage, occur in old Bromberg documents. Especially frequent are the names of Watson, Wilson, Wallace, Hutton, Herin (Heron) and M‘Kean. In 1733, a Joseph Wilson is provost, in 1823 one Makkien "Archivarius."

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In the minute books of the Courts at Bromberg we are told of Jacobus Herin (Heron), Scotus, who is accused of having sent his famulus David Heron to attack a Scotch tailor, with the name of Alexander, whom he wounded (1598). Heron replies that David was nobilis et sui juris, of noble birth and of age, and not his famulus. He himself knew nothing of the crime, having on the day of its committal been absent in Thorn on business (mercatum). The same books relate how a Scot with the name of Wolson (Wilson), who had been president of the court of bailies in the absence of the Starost, was called before the council of the town, and accused of having suppressed certain important documents to the detriment of the place (1671). He, however, appeared only to deny the competency of the court, and "went away."

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A very interesting case, illustrating this law of reversion, happened in Bromberg in 1625. A Scot, with the curious name of Michael Nosek, had just died there and the "royal notary," Nicholas Gurski, a nobleman, demands the inheritance as a donation of the king. The bailies are about to hand over the property of the deceased when John Varuga and John Brommer, a medical practitioner, lodge a protest. Finally, the decision of the court is as follows: Considering


1. That the deceased Nosek had deposited an authenticated and unobjectionable birth-brief;
2. That he had done military service under King Stephen in Livonia;
3. That he had made Bromberg his domicile, acquiring real estate there;
4. That he had sworn the oath of fealty to the magistrates;
5. That he had married according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, and had begotten children;
6. That he had earned his living in an unobjectionable way; and

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"Schottland," in the district of Bromberg in Posen, also numbering about 200 inhabitants.

...a kirchdorf (village with a church), "Schottland," in the district of Bromberg in Posen, also numbering about 200 inhabitants...

In the 17th century, Poland was described as ‘Scotland’s America’. Contemporaries estimated that 15,000-40,000 Scots were settled in Poland mainly as merchants, peddlers and craftsmen. This mass migration is largely forgotten in modern Scotland, though is remembered still in Poland. The names of the descendants of Scots immigrants are still to be found in Polish phone books, such as Ramzy from Ramsay, or Czarmas from Chalmers. Danzig still has many Scottish street names and villages in the hinterland are named after the Scots - Szkocja, Skotna Góra, Szotniki or Szoty.

In 1566 a universal decree was promulgated forbidding Scottish pedlars to roam about the country, and King Stephen in 1567 issued orders that the unpropertied Scots must be forced to remove from his domains in Posen. Yet they could not become burgesses of the towns without much difficulty and submitting to many conditions. Poor Scots as well as more wealthy cramers continued to swarm into East Prussia and Poland, and often died of hunger: hucksters were forbidden to settle in Bromberg in 1568; and we have evidence that they were still legislated against, sometimes coupled with the hated Jews, which galled them greatly, and even occasionally with Gipsies and beggars.

Another levy brought (unwillingly enough) into the Polish service, General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, who later gained great fame in Russia as ‘Patrick Ivanovitch,’ the friend and collaborator of Peter the Great. He entered the Swedish army in 1655, seduced thereto at Hamburg by a Ruit-master Gardin, of his own nation; was captured after the siege of Cracow next year by the Poles. He was compelled to take service in their army, in a company of dragoons under Constantine Lubomirsky, Starosta of Sandets, being released for the purpose, through the intervention of his countryman, ‘P. Innes, Provincial of the Franciscans.’ It was not the first time that Patrick Gordon had been in Poland, however, as we learn from his Diary, [Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699. (Spalding Club), 1859.] which is delightful in itself, and invaluable to all students of Russian and Polish history.


The son of the laird of Auchleuchries in Aberdeen, and his wife, Mary Ogilvy, he was born in 1635, and educated at the school of Ellon and other local schools till 1651, when, he says, ‘staying at home, did wait upon my father.’ Anxious to make his fortune as ‘the younger son of a younger brother of a younger house,’ he determined to go abroad to seek his fortune with--although a Catholic—no particular choice of country ‘seing I had no knowne friend in any foreigne place.’ He shipped to Dantzig, found Scottish friends there, and then thought of the Jesuit college of Bromberg, ‘yet could not my humor endure such a still and strict way of liveing.’ Slipping away, he had many adventures of the poor traveller in Prussia until, in 1653, ‘falling into acquaintance with one John Dick; who was prentice to a merchant called Robert Sleich, I was perswaded by him to travell further up into Polland, and, because I was much inclined to be a souldier, he told me that Duke Ian Radzewill had a lyfe company, all or most Scottismen, where wee would without doubt be accommodated.’ His journal in Poland chiefly shows the ubiquity of the Scots.

Dr. Fischer’s books contain many interesting details and names of Scots settled in Poland and Prussia. Of the former he printed lists of the burgesses and of those who merely dwelt in Posen [The Scots in East and West Prussia] (1585-1713), in Cracow (1573-1687), [The Scots in Germany. This supplements the information contained in this volume, on the ‘Scots admitted to the citizenship of Cracow, with evidence regarding their parentage.’] and in Warsaw [Ibid.] (1576-1697), and all those who settled (first or last) at Dantzig. Incident on these he gave us, in spite of the general denial by King Vladislas in 1633 of civil rights to the Scots, except in exceptional circumstances, the Charter of Privileges the Scots in Bromberg received on 7th October 1568, which was confirmed by King Stephen in 1581, and confirmed (with alterations) by King Sigismund III. In 1622, and King Vladislas IV. in 1636.

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